Image scanner and optical character recognition system using said image scanner

ABSTRACT

The present invention is directed to providing an image scanner and an optical recognition system using said image scanner which can scan only the “intended region” to carry out character recognition and can carry out character recognition in the background of an application software and can input the recognition result directly to said application software. Image picture data which are captured by scanning the “intended region” of a document with the image scanner mouse  20  are converted to text data by a character recognition software in the personal computer  10  and are inputted directly to an application software. Designation and confirmation of input starting position for the “intended region” on a document are made easily and surely with the LCD 26  at hand on the image scanner  20.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

This invention is broadly concerned with an image scanner and an opticalcharacter recognition system using said image scanner, and moreparticularly with an image scanner and a character recognition systemusing said scanner which can recognize image characters of any region ofa document by optically scanning and can input said characterinformation as character code data to an application software loaded ina personal computer.

In this description, the term “document” means printed matter like book,magazine, newspaper, brochure, visiting card and etc. And the term“character recognition” used in this description means not onlyrecognition of usual character like “kana”, “katakana”, “kanji” and“alphanumeric” but also recognition of any symbol code image likebarcode which can be recognized by a computer and can be converted tocharacter data.

2. The Prior Art of the Invention

In any conventional character recognition apparatus of printed matter(it will be called document hereafter) using a personal computer and atbed or sheet feed scanner (it will be simply called a scannerhereafter), the following operations are needed to recognize printedcharacters.

(Operation 1) . . . Scanning Document

First, a document is set to a scanner and the document is scanned.

(Operation 2) . . . Character Recognition

The image picture of a whole document sent from said scanner isdeveloped and displayed on a CRT display of a personal computer bycharacter recognition software. After designating by a mouse the regionwhere characters are intended to be recognized (this region will becalled “intended region” hereafter) on a character recognition software,the image picture data of the “intended region” are converted to textdata (character code data) by using character recognition software andare displayed again on said CRT display.

(Operation 3) . . . Correction

The recognition result by said character recognition software iscorrected with key board by comparing the image picture data of saiddocument displayed on said character recognition software with text datawhich are recognized result.

(Operation 4) . . . Copying or Pasting of said Corrected Text Data to anApplication Software.

In the next step, the corrected text data are copied by using a mouseand pasted to application software such as word processor orspreadsheet.

Repetition of Operation.

When more than one document are needed to be recognized, said operation1 through 4 should be repeated. When more than one “intended region” ina document are needed to be recognized, said operation 2 through 4should be repeated.

In said conventional character recognition system, parts to be utilizedare needed to be cut or copied from a character recognition software andpasted to application software such as word processor or spreadsheet inwhich the text data, converted character codes, are utilized. In otherwords, with said conventional technology, the character code convertedfrom image data cannot be utilized simultaneously at a necessary placeof application software such word processor or spreadsheet when they areworking.

To solve those problem mentioned above, there is an example of prior artfound in the disclosure of Japanese Non-examined Patent Publication No.7-28801, in which character recognition results of needed part of imagedata can be utilized directly by use of other application software. Thatis to say, in said prior art, image data including characters aredisplayed and a designated part of said displayed to character code andsaid character code are transmitted to application software for documentediting or data processing.

The Problem to be Solved by the Present Invention

Document sizes for character recognition used by scanners on the marketare usually type A4 form (occasionally type A3) and they are scanned oneby one and one page of the document is scanned from end to end. However,actual document to be scanned varies in size from a visiting card sizeor a book size to a newspaper size. Besides, in many cases, thecharacters to be scanned and recognized are not all the character of thedocument but a portion of the document or the characters to be scannedare scattered around the document. In a prior method of characterrecognition, an example of which is disclosed in Japanese Non-examinedPatent Publication No. 7-28801, firstly image data including charactersare displayed on a CRT display monitor of a computer. Secondly, theportion to be cut from said displayed image data needs to be designatedand after characters in the cut image data are recognized and convertedto character code data, they need to be transmitted to applicationsoftware. Accordingly, if characters to be inputted scatter arounddocument, with said conventional character recognition system, it isimpossible to scan only necessary portion of said characters separatelyfrom other part of characters which is unnecessary to be inputted. Inother words, with conventional character recognition system, wholedocument including unnecessary part of characters is scanned and clearlysaid conventional system is inefficient. Besides, said conventionalcharacter recognition system can not be used in a way that onlynecessary part of document is scanned fittingly, recognized and therecognized results are transmitted to application software like wordprocessor while we are reading the document. Besides, in the prior art,after image data are taken into a character recognition software, theyare displayed on a CRT display monitor and portions to be recognized aredesignated by a pointing device like mouse, then direct input ofcharacters to application software made possible. Accordingly, with theprior art we need too many operations to make direct input of preferredcharacters to application software. The other problem of the prior artis that we cannot check the results of converted character code databefore they are taken into character recognition software andaccordingly at hand, we can not confirm, correct or change the convertedresult of image data on the spot. The present invention is aiming tosolve said problem of the prior art and provides a scanner and anoptical character recognition system using said scanner in which only“intended region” of document can be scanned and characters of saidregion can be recognized at background of application software and therecognition results can be inputted directly to said applicationsoftware.

The Method to Solve said Problem

To realize said object, the present invention provides a method that candecide and confirm portion of characters to be taken on a document andcan recognize characters in the background of application software andcan input the recognition results directly to said application software.

The image scanner of the present invention comprises; an image sensorwhich retrieves character information on a document as image informationby scanning optically characters on said document, an output part whichoutputs the image information gotten by scanning characters with saidimage sensor, an input part which inputs the character recognitionresults of image information outputted by said output part, display partwhich displays the character recognition results inputted by said inputpart. Said image scanner is movable on a document so as to designate atwill the needed recognition region from the character information ofsaid document. And the conversion results of character image gotten byscanning characters on said document can be confirmed at hand bydisplaying the character recognition results on said display part. Theoptical character recognition system of the present invention consistsof an image scanner and a personal computer. Said image scannercomprises; an image sensor which scans optically characters on adocument and retrieves character information on said document as imageinformation, an output part which outputs the image information gottenby scanning characters on a document with said image sensor to apersonal computer, an input part which inputs, from said personalcomputer, the character recognition results of image informationoutputted by said output part, a display part which displays saidcharacter recognition results inputted by said input part, and anoperating part which operates whether the said character recognitionresults should be fixed or not. The image scanner of the presentinvention is movable over a document so as to designate willingly theregion to be recognized among character information on the document. Andconversion results of character information on the document can beconfirmed at hand by looking at the character recognition results ofdesignated region of said document displayed in said display part andafter fixing the conversion results by operating said operating part,the fixing signal is transmitted to a computer. Said computer should beloaded with at least one application software and a characterrecognition software which recognize image information outputted by saidoutput part of said image scanner. And when image information scanned bysaid image sensor is inputted to said computer, the characterrecognition results by said character recognition software will betransmitted to said image scanner. When the signal of fixing conversionresult is transmitted from said image scanner to said computer, thefixed character data will be inputted to the designated position of saidapplication software.

Hereafter, the method of data input of the present invention, that is,the sequence of process of data input in application software such asword processor, spread sheet, data base software etc. is described.

When an image scanner movable over a document scans characters on adocument so as to designate regions willingly to be recognized amongcharacter information of said document, image data gotten by scanningwill be transmitted to a personal computer. After said personal computerretrieves the image data, character recognition software, working atbackground of application software which deal with data input, willrecognize said image data as character and corresponding character codedata will be transmitted in bit map format to said image scanner.

When said image scanner receives the character code data, characters aredisplayed on a display part of said image scanner. When said charactersdisplayed are confirmed as those that are intended to be scanned, asignal notifying completion of correct scanning will be sent to saidpersonal computer.

When said personal computer receives said signal notifying completion ofcorrect scan, said character code data are inputted to applicationsoftware.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1

Function block diagram showing embodiment of an optical characterrecognition system of the present invention.

FIG. 2

Schematic diagram of the optical character recognition system shown inFIG. 1.

FIG. 3

Top plan view showing the structure of the scanner mouse shown in FIG.1.

FIG. 4

Left side view showing the structure of the scanner mouse shown in FIG.1.

FIG. 5

Sequence diagram showing the flow of process of the optical recognitionsystem shown in FIG. 1.

FIG. 6

Block diagram showing another embodiment of the present invention inwhich text data of character recognition are inputted directly to anapplication software.

FIG. 7

Perspective view of another embodiment of image scanner of the presentinvention.

Preferred Embodiment of the Present Invention

Referring to the attached drawings, the embodiment of an image scannerand an optical scanning system using said image scanner according to thepresent invention is described hereinafter.

Referring to FIG. 2, there is shown a schematic diagram of the preferredembodiment of an optical character recognition system according to thepresent invention in which an image scanner takes the form of a scannermouse.

In FIG. 2, the personal computer 10 is a conventional computer runningwith an operating system such as Windows 98 of Microsoft which can dealwith Universal Serial Bus (it will be called USB hereafter), that is, ahigh speed bidirectional communication bus.

The personal computer 10 can run with application software such as wordprocessor, spread sheet, database software etc. and, besides, it runwith a character recognition software at background of said applicationsoftware.

In other words, while a character recognition software runs in thepersonal computer 10, the operator of the computer cannot see the run ofsaid character recognition software but see the run of said applicationsoftware only and the characters recognized with said characterrecognition software are inputted to the application software as if theyare inputted with a key board.

The personal computer 10 is connected with CRT display or LCD(LiquidCrystal Display) display and is connected with key board. Besides, thepersonal computer 10 has USB terminal and a scanner mouse 20 isconnected to said USB terminal of the computer through USB cable 50.Thus, by connecting said scanner mouse 20 through USB to the personalcomputer, it is possible to communicate bi-directionally between saidscanner mouse and the computer and the computer 10 can supply thescanner mouse 20 with power.

The scanner mouse 20 has united two parts which have different function.The one function is a mouse function which acts as a pointing device ofthe personal computer 10 and the other is a scanner function which scansdocument optically and outputs image data. The scanner mouse 20 has animage sensor in its bottom to scan document optically and it can moveover any place on a document.

Accordingly, by moving the scanner mouse 20 to an “intended region”where we want to carry out character recognition, we can scan necessarypart of characters of a document.

The scanner mouse 20 transmits the scanned image data of “intendedregion” of a document to the personal computer 10 through USB cable 50.When the personal computer 10 receives the image data, the characterrecognition software will recognize the image data and the charactercode, recognition results will be transmitted to the mouse 20 throughthe USB cable 50. When the scanner mouse receives said character code,the corresponding characters will be displayed on the LCD 26.

Thus, because the character recognition results of scanned region areshown at almost real time on the LCD 26, the recognition results can beconfirmed as soon as scanning is done. Accordingly, while scanning isbeing done, the position (the beginning point or finishing point ofscanning) of “intended region” can be adjusted. Moreover, the positionof the “intended region” can be changed if necessary and set point(threshold for binary) can be adjusted adequately while image data arebeing retrieved.

In other words, in this embodiment of the present invention, takingadvantage of higher speed character recognition technology owing toimproved performance of personal computer and taking advantage of highspeed data transmission of USB, the beginning and finishing point ofcharacter recognition on a document can be checked with the display part26 by moving slightly the scanner, when “intended region” is designated.Accordingly, it is possible to designate again “intended region” at thisstage if starting and/or finishing point of scanning is not adequate.And when a voice synthesis software is loaded in the personal computer10, it is possible to know the recognition results by out putting voicewithout checking the display part 26.

When designation of “intended region” is confirmed and the confirmationis fixed by operating the scanner mouse 20, the recognition results areinputted directly to a cursor position of word processor software orspread sheet software which is running on the personal computer 10. Atthis moment, in the embodiment of the present invention, the originalimage data of the character recognition results which were sent to saidapplication software are shown on the personal computer 10 in order toget easy way of correcting possible wrong recognition on saidapplication software. Accordingly, even if some wrong portion is foundin the recognition results, the wrong recognized portion can be easilycorrected on said application software with a key board by referring tosaid image data.

When a voice recognition software such as described in the disclosure ofJapanese Non-examined Patent Publication No. 7-83353 is loaded so as toamend wrong recognized portion on application software with voice, eveninexperienced users of the computer 10 can amend easily wrong recognizedportion.

In FIG. 1, there is shown a function block diagram of the personalcomputer 10 and the scanner mouse 20 which were described in FIG. 2.Referring to FIG. 1, the scanner mouse 20 comprises a mouse and imagesensor circuit 22, interface circuit 24, a LCD 26 and USB microcontroller 28. In the embodiment of the present invention, the scannermouse 20 can store said scanned image data, but usually the scannermouse 20 is connected with a computer and it outputs scanned image datawith high speed at real time to the personal computer 10 without storingsaid image data.

The mouse and image sensor circuit 22 comprises a mouse which works aspointing device of a personal computer and an image sensor whichrecognizes picture on a document as image data. The mouse and imagesensor circuit 22 has also a position sensor circuit which utilizes aposition signal of the mouse as position signal of the scanner. Themouse and image sensor circuit 22 is connected with the interfacecircuit 24 and position information detected by the mouse and image dataretrieved by image sensor are outputted to the interface circuit 24 asserial data. The mouse and image sensor circuit 22 carries out alsotransmitting control signal to the interface circuit 24 and receivingcontrol signal from the interface circuit 24.

The circuit 24 is a interface circuit between the mouse and image sensorcircuit 22, LCD 26 and USB micro controller 28. The interface circuit 24transmits position information detected by a mouse to the USB microcontroller 28 at real time and when the interface circuit 24 receivessignals of beginning and finishing for scanning and signal of fixing, itwill transmit those signals to the mouse and image sensor circuit 22.When the interface circuit 24 receives control data which displaycharacters on the LCD 26 through the USB micro controller 28, it willoutput the control data (FCC) to the LCD 26. With these control data,corresponding characters will be shown on the LCD 26.

USB micro controller 28 is a controller circuit which comprisescontroller part controlling the scanner mouse 20 on the whole and USBcontroller part to transmit and receive data through USB. The USB microcontroller 28 is connected with a USB driver of the personal computer 10through the USB cable 50 and it transmits image data retrieved by theimage sensor to the personal computer 10. When the USB micro controller28 receives character code data from the personal computer 10, it willoutput control data to the interface circuit 24 to display characters onthe LCD 26.

The personal computer 10 comprises USB driver 12 of Kernel Layer whichis controlled at OS (Operating System) level and user interface 14 ofUser Layer which is controlled at application software level. In theinterface 14 of the referring figure, there is shown a flow of characterrecognition process of image data. In the user interface 14 of thereferring figure, first, image data received through the USB driver fromthe scanner mouse 20 are retrieved (140) and secondly they are convertedto picture data such as bit map (BMP) etc. (142) and finally JapaneseCharacter recognition is processed (144).

In the process (144), image data received from the scanner mouse 20 areconverted successively to character code data of Japanese Character andstored in the file (146). The character code data stored in the file areprocessed as LCD transmission data (148) at almost real time in bit mapformat and they are transmitted to the scanner mouse 20 through the USBdriver 12. As a result, image data scanned by the scanner mouse 20 areconverted to character data at real time by the personal computer 10 andthe conversion results of scanning are shown on the LCD 26 at almost thesame time that scanning is being done.

FIG. 3 and FIG. 4 shows top plan view and side elevation view of thescanner mouse 20 respectively which is shown in FIG. 1 and FIG. 2. Asshown in the figure, in the scanner mouse 20, there are arranged ascanner 30 having inside an image sensor, a roller 32, a mouse ball 34,and a control circuit 36 controlling the whole scanner mouse 20. Thescanner 30, the roller 32 and the ball 34 in FIG. 3 correspond to themouse and image sensor circuit 22. And the control circuit 36 in FIG. 3corresponds to the interface circuit 24 and the USB micro controller 28.

The scanner 30 is a contact type image picture sensor and a light sourceis joined to the image sensor within the scanner 30. The scanner 30 hasa super sensitivity image sensor higher than 400 dpi so as to recognizecomplicated Kanji letters.

The scanner mouse 20 has the LCD 26 at the upper side of its top surfaceand 2 or 3 mouse buttons 44 are arranged also on the top surface of thescanner mouse 20. The left button 40 is to start scanning and the rightbutton 42 is to fix characters displayed on the LCD 26. On both of theleft and right sides of the surface of the scanner mouse 20, theindications 46 a, 46 b are printed to indicate scanning area. With theseindications on the scanner mouse 20, it will be easy to adjust ascanning place on a document.

FIG. 4 is a structural view of the scanner mouse 20 showing its leftside view.

As shown in FIG. 4, the scanner mouse 20 has gentle slope on its frontpart so as to look more easily at the LCD 26 and has a roundness in therear so as to be securely grasped. The roller 32 is arranged on slightlyupper than the ball 34 in order to prevent an influence of the roller 32on the work of ball 34.

Though not described particularly, we can select by the personalcomputer 10 which language, Japanese or English, would be scanned orwhich input, character or picture, would be used etc. These selectionmay be adjusted also by a control button arranged in the scanner mouse20 or we may use both of these means, personal computer or controlbutton.

Instead of indications 46 a, 46 b, a window having the width of thescanner 30 can be made through which document can be seen from the topso as to adjust easily position to scan “intended region”.

Referring FIG. 3 and FIG. 4, the operation of the scanner mouse 20 isdescribed hereinafter.

While the scanning button 40 is being pressed down, the scanning isbeing done. When the scanning start button 40 is pressed down, thescanner mouse will throw light from a light source (not shown) todocument surface and the scanner sensor 30 will begin to scan pictures.

As the scanner 30 is arranged perpendicularly to document, image dataare retrieved by moving the scanner mouse 20 in the direction of thearrow 100 of FIG. 2. The retrieved image data are outputted to thecontrol circuit 36 and transmitted to the personal computer 10 accordingto USB protocol through the USB cable 50. Also, when the control circuit36 receives character code data from the personal computer 10, it willtake out corresponding letters from a built-in memory and displays themon the LCD 26.

At this moment, “lines indicating the beginning and the end” of“recognized text” are displayed on the LCD 26. The display of characterson the LCD 26 are related with scanning direction of the scanner 30. Toput it concretely, when the scanner 30 moves from the left to the right,characters on the LCD, namely, characters recognition results willfirstly appear on the right side of the LCD 26.

And as recognized characters increase, displayed characters willincrease with moving from the right end toward the left end.Accordingly, after the first recognized character is displayed, it takessome time for it to disappear.

That means it is possible to confirm easily scanning position. Thus,designation and confirmation of the “intended region” will be easilydone. In other words we can determine easily the beginning position andthe finishing position of inputting at hand while concentratingattention on document.

After the characters shown on the LCD 26 are confirmed and the button 42for scanning fixing is pressed down, the control circuit 36 will detectpressing down of the button 42 and will notify the personal computer 10through the USB cable 50 that confirming and fixing process of charactercode data has completed. When the personal computer 10 receives thisnotice, the character code data will be inputted directly to theapplication software which is running.

In the description of scanning process hereinbefore, scanning is donewhile the scanning start button 40 is being pressed down, however otherembodiment such as described hereinafter is possible. That is to say,once the scanning start button is pressed, the scanning mouse 20 becomesscanning mode and when the scanning button is pressed again, scanningmode is released. In this case, the roller 32 goes down to the positionwhere it touches a document with the first press of the scanning startbutton 40 and the roller 32 will go back to the original position withthe second press. In substitution for the starting button 40 or thefixing button 42 mentioned above, we can utilize the mouse button 44 tostart scanning and to fix characters.

FIG. 5 shows a flow of process sequence in the personal computer 10 andthe scanner mouse 20. In this figure, explanations of the process 200,202, 204, 206 and 210 will be over lapped, so one example of the process208 is given herein in which recognized text file of character isoutputted to an application software after image file is recognized inthe process 206.

When character recognized text file is outputted, it is inputted toapplication software of MS-Word type by making use of “WinExec( )” whichis Windows function. Syntax of the “WinExec ( )” is as follows:

-   -   UNIT WinExec(LPCSTR IpCmdLine, //address of command line UNIT        nCmdShow, //window style for application).

Here, LPCSTR IpCmdLine stands for a bus name of execution file of“WinWord(MS-WORD)” application software and by changing this portion anyapplication file can be designated.

In the embodiment of the present invention, text code data which arecharacter code data by Japanese character recognition process areinputted to application software without changing its form. In aconventional way of inputting data using key board, operating systemreceives inputted data and makes them code form which are suitable forapplication software, whereas in the embodiment of the presentinvention, as mentioned above, several Windows functions are used forinputting data. Also, in the embodiment of the present invention,instead of a single character, a block of characters or a line ofcharacters are inputted at the same time to application software withtext form. With these input process, it is possible to input data toapplication software with text form faster than any other methodincluding key board input.

Incidentally, in said embodiment of the present invention, a bus name ofexecution file must be changed when application software is changed andoperator needs to know what application software is used. In FIG. 6, anembodiment improving this point is shown and a flow of processing datain the personal computer 10 is shown.

The operating system 600 is a basic software which manages and controlstotally operations of hardware and software. To be concrete, when theoperating system 600 receives image data sent from the scanner mouse 20,it outputs said image data to character recognition software 610 runningin the background.

Also, the operating system 600 controls system so that scan codeinputted from the key board 17 are handed to IMM (Input Method Manager)630 and converted there to character code and displayed on the displaymonitor 15.

In the operating system 600. IME (Input Method Editor) 620 is called byIMM 630 and converts scan code inputted from the key board 17 toJapanese language or other Asian language of 2 byte system. In case ofEnglish, scan code inputted from the key board 17 is converted tocharacter code by IMM 630.

Therefore, in Japanese version of Windows 98, when character code areinputted to the application software 640, the IMM 630 intervenes amongthe operating system 600, the character recognition software 610, theJapanese kana kanji conversion software IME 620, and the applicationsoftware 640.

Thus, we can output character code of the text file of the characterrecognition software 610 directly to application software by using IMM630. In this procedure, WN_ME_REPORT message is utilized for carryingcharacter block or character line all at once and WN_CHAR or WN_IME_CHARmessage is utilized for carrying single character separately. Therefore,by using IMM 630, we do not need to change execution file for anyapplication software. IMM is stored in system folder of Windows with thename of IMM or WINNLS.

Although an embodiment of the present invention has been describedhereinbefore in a case that an image scanner is applied to a scannermouse, the present invention is not restricted particularly to a scannermouse.

FIG. 7 shows a perspective view of the other embodiment of an imagescanner for the present invention. The image scanner 70 shown in FIG. 7is a plane type image scanner which can recognize character of intendedregion by putting the scanner over the intended region. It should beunderstood that the function block diagram shown in FIG. 1 can beapplied also to the embodiment described herein.

FIG. 7(a) shows plan view of the image scanner 70. As shown in FIG.7(a), the image scanner 70 is a size of a postage card and rectangularshaped and has a liquid crystal film display panel 72 of Japaneselanguage on its top surface which displays recognition results. There isa scanning starting button 73 at the lower left of the liquid crystalfilm display panel of Japanese language.

The contact image sensor 74 has a structure in which a light source andan image sensor are united and is fixed to slidable portion 75 a, 75 b.The slidable portions 75 a, 75 b are fitted to the rails 76 a, 76 b soas to slide. The contact image sensor 74 is fitted also to the belt 78with the fixing part 84 which is stretched between the driving pulley 80and the free pulley 82. Therefore, when the driving pulley 80 turnsclockwise, the contact image sensor 74 moves to the direction of thearrow 700 a and when the driving pulley 80 turns counterclockwise, thecontact image sensor 74 moves to the direction of the arrow 700 b.

To be concrete, when the button 73 is pressed down, the contact imagesensor 74 located at the lower left begins to move to the direction ofarrow 700 a by the clockwise turning of the driving pulley 80 and beginsto scan a draft put just under the scanner. The moving distance of theimage sensor 74 is digitized by an encoder (not shown) placed at theside of the sensor. Scanning to the vertical direction is done byelectrical signal within the sensor. Both of the vertical and horizontaldigitized signals are transmitted to the image sensor circuit 20 (referFIG. 1).

The image scanner 70 of the present embodiment is also connected to thepersonal computer 10 through USB cable and the following process is thesame as those of the scanner mouse 20 practically. In case of thescanner mouse 20, a scanner is moved over the scanning range of adocument by hand, however in case of the image scanner 70, the scanneris put on a document and the contact image sensor 74 moves to scan.Accordingly, the image scanner 70 is able to scan “intended region”stably.

The embodiment of the present invention has been described in case of asystem using Windows 98 with which the present invention is appliedfavorably. However, it should be understood that operating systemapplicable to the present invention is not restricted to Windows 98 andthe concept of the present invention can be applicable to otheroperating system such as Windows CE, Macintosh OS and etc.

The Effect of the Invention

As set forth above, by applying the present invention, it is possible tomake character recognition of necessary portion of document easily athand just like using a pen. And by running a character recognitionsoftware at background of application software, character code data ofrecognized characters can be inputted directly to said applicationsoftware. Therefore, by applying the present invention, characters in adocument while looking can be converted to character code data just asinputting characters with keyboard and accordingly labor of characterinput work will be saved drastically.

1. An image scanner device for communicating information with a personalcomputer installed with a character recognition software and at leastone application software, wherein the character recognition software canconvert character image information into character code information,said device comprising; i) an image sensor means for optically scanningon an intended region of a document so as to retrieve character imageinformation therefrom; ii) an output means for sending the characterimage information retrieved from the intended region to the personalcomputer; iii) an input means for receiving character code informationcorresponding to the character image information from the personalcomputer; iv) a display means for displaying the character codeinformation; and v) an operating means for fixing and sending back thecharacter code information to the personal computer through the outputmeans so that the character code information is introduced at a cursorposition for the application software active in the personal computer.2. The image scanner device of claim 1, wherein said device comprises apointing function means for the personal computer.
 3. The image scannerdevice of claim 2, wherein said device comprises a scanner mouse meansto serve for the pointing function means.
 4. The image scanner device ofclaim 3, wherein said device comprises a sensor circuit for utilizing apositional signal of the scanner mouse means and/or the image sensormeans as a positional signal for said device.
 5. The image scannerdevice of claim 2, wherein said device is connected to the personalcomputer through a high-speed bi-directional communication bus.
 6. Theimage scanner device of claim 1, wherein the character code informationis displayed in real time base at the display means and the charactercode information can be changed until when the intended character codeinformation is fixed.
 7. An optical character recognition systemcomprising an image scanner device and a personal computer installedwith a character recognition software and at least one applicationsoftware, wherein the character recognition software can convertcharacter image information into character code information, said imagescanner device comprising: i) an image sensor means for opticallyscanning on an intended region of a document so as to retrieve characterimage information therefrom; ii) an output means for sending thecharacter image information retrieved from the intended region to thepersonal computer; iii) an input means for receiving character codeinformation corresponding to the character image information from thepersonal computer; iv) a display means for displaying the character codeinformation; and v) an operating means for fixing and sending back thecharacter code information to the personal computer through the outputmeans so that the character code information is introduced at a cursorposition for the application software active in the personal computer.8. The optical character recognition system of claim 7, wherein said atleast one application software contains a voice synthesizer software andthe character code information is output from the personal computer in aform of voice information converted by the voice synthesizer software.9. The optical character recognition system of claim 7, wherein said satleast one application software contains a voice recognition software toamend the character code information in response to a voice instructionto the voice recognition software.
 10. A method for inputting data to anoptical character recognition system comprising an image scanner deviceand a personal computer installed with a character recognition softwareand at least one application software, wherein the character recognitionsoftware can convert character image information into character codeinformation, said method comprising the steps of: i) optically scanningthe image scanner device on an intended region of a document so as toretrieve character image information therefrom; ii) transferring thecharacter image information retrieved from the intended region to thepersonal computer; iii) converting the character image information intocharacter code information by the character recognition software in thebackground of said at least one application active in the personalcomputer; iv) transferring the character code information to the imagescanner device; v) displaying and fixing the character code informationon the image scanner device; vi) transmitting the character codeinformation from the image scanner device to the personal computer whenthe character code information is fixed; and vii) introducing thecharacter code information at a cursor position for the applicationsoftware active in the personal computer.
 11. The method of claim 10,wherein said at least one application software contains a programsoftware for utilizing the character code information as 2 byte Asianlanguage and the character code information is introduced into theapplication software active in the personal computer through the programsoftware.
 12. The method of claim 10, wherein the character codeinformation and the character image information are both displayed onthe personal computer so that the character code information can beamended with reference to the character image information.